Delay
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Musashi finds Hiruma at the edge of the practice field." Musashi and Hiruma share a cigarette, and a moment, and neither of them capitulates.


Musashi finds Hiruma at the edge of the practice field.

He could have guessed at the other's location, if he were looking for him. Musashi knows Hiruma better than he knows anyone else, maybe better than he knows himself, and even at a half hour to midnight the chances of him being at the football field are at least even with him being anywhere else, least of all at his home. It's where he belongs, Musashi knows, the grass underfoot and the distant outline of the goalposts extensions of Hiruma's body, expressions of himself that go beyond the bleached blond of his hair and the weight of metal at his ears.

There was a time, Musashi remembers, when he belonged there too, when he was as likely to be alongside Hiruma as anywhere else. Now he pauses in the shadows between yellow-hazed streetlights, stares at the sharp-edged silhouette of black deeper even than the night, and he doesn't move.

There's a shift of motion, a head turning back, and Musashi doesn't have time to flinch before Hiruma is looking over his shoulder, tilting back at the waist to give him a look so pointed he can feel it without even seeing the expression. "You gonna come over or you gonna just stand there?" Hiruma calls, pitching his voice sharp to carry over the distance, and Musashi steps forward without thinking, drawn in by the sound of Hiruma's voice as much as by the jagged angles of his silhouette.

"Standing around staring at high schoolers is kind of creepy, old man," Hiruma informs Musashi as he draws closer, close enough to make out the dark of Hiruma's eyes from the pale of his face. "You becoming a pervert in your old age?"

"You know that's not it," Musashi says, but he's smiling in spite of himself, amused as he is always amused by Hiruma's teasing. "I don't make a habit of it."

"Just me then?" Hiruma's grin is bright, shows so many teeth it's hard to notice that it doesn't quite touch the shadows in his eyes. "Stalker."

"We were working late," Musashi tells him, reeling the conversation back in from the suggestion in Hiruma's gaze, from the offer at his mouth, from everything about him that makes the distance between them crackle electric. "I was just heading home."

"Maybe I'm the one stalking you," Hiruma suggests. "You could be in danger this very second, old man."

"I'm always in danger with you," Musashi says, and he meant it as teasing but it comes out serious, heavy enough with double meaning that it weighs down the corners of Hiruma's grin, flattens his mouth into steady consideration that is worse even than the almost manic smile he started with. Dark eyes cut down, dragging across Musashi's face like a touch, and Musashi can feel his blood go hot as Hiruma's gaze lands and lingers at his lips, sliding across the line of them like he's reading the future from the shape of Musashi's mouth.

"Give me a cigarette," he says, the words an order Musashi has no hope to refuse.

"I thought you quit," is all he manages, and he's already fishing the box out of his pocket, tapping the bottom to free one of the sticks inside for Hiruma's reaching fingers. There's a moment of contact, Hiruma's fingers weighting the box in Musashi's grip; then Hiruma's tugging a cigarette free, bracing it between skinny fingers as Musashi looks away to fit the box back in his pocket.

"I did," Hiruma says, fitting the end of the cigarette between his lips and bracing it with his teeth. Musashi stares at the line of white, at the way Hiruma's lips curve soft against the cylindrical shape, at the dark of his mouth around the cigarette, and when he breathes in the smoke in his lungs goes heavy with the awareness of it. "It's an indulgence." He looks up, just for a moment, just long enough to catch Musashi staring at his mouth; then his gaze slides away, his hand coming up to gesture command at the other. "Gimme a light."

"Don't have one," Musashi says. "Used up the last of my matches five minutes ago. Don't you have a lighter?"

Hiruma looks up at him again, the corner of his mouth catching into a grin around the cigarette braced at his teeth. "Quit," he repeats. "Don't carry one with me anymore." He gestures again, his fingers curling into a summons Musashi doesn't understand and can't refuse. "C'mere."

Musashi comes. He doesn't see what Hiruma intends until he's close, close enough for the other to get his hand up and bracing at the back of Musashi's neck; even then his heart stutters, skids out on the impossibility of contact, so he doesn't realize what Hiruma is doing until the hold at his neck stalls him inches shy of direct contact, with the lit end of his cigarette in range of Hiruma's. The hand at his neck slides away, Hiruma braces his fingers at his cigarette instead, but Musashi doesn't pull away; he stays perfectly still, tipped in so close Hiruma's hair is nearly brushing his bandanna, and watches the dark of Hiruma's eyelashes as the other touches his cigarette to the glowing ember at the end of Musashi's. There's a rush of air, Hiruma dragging an inhale through the resistance of the cigarette, and the fire glows brighter for a moment, casting red-gold illumination over Hiruma's face and lighting his eyes into something dark and sparkling for a moment. Then the paper catches, Hiruma pulls away, and Musashi watches the brief open flame die down into the dull-glowing red it was before.

"Can you get the work done on time?" Hiruma asks, facing the field but watching Musashi sideways with those eyes still dark in the dim of the night. When he exhales the smoke clouds the air between them to soften the edges of his features.

Musashi tastes nicotine on his tongue, feels the burn of smoke in his lungs. "We'll try," he says. "It's going well so far."

"So you'll get it done," Hiruma says, adjusting his cigarette and flashing a grin at Musashi.

Musashi shrugs. "Seems that way right now. Something could go wrong, though."

"Better sorry than safe," Hiruma quips. Musashi wants to look away; it would be better to look away, he knows, but the only option other than Hiruma is the field, and however deep the sharp lines of Hiruma's face cut they are nothing compared to the bone-deep ache the abandoned field gives him. He keeps looking at Hiruma, watches the shift of his eyelashes when he blinks, tracks the angle of his wrist when he lifts a hand to draw his cigarette back from his lips; even the tilt of his shoulders is familiar, the asymmetrical balance of his hips an invitation to nostalgia.

"What're you staring at?" Hiruma asks, and when Musashi looks back up to his face he realizes he has been, can see the lingering weight of his own gaze in the shadows of Hiruma's. "Shouldn't an old man like you be in bed by now?"

"Probably," Musashi agrees, and doesn't move.

Hiruma's grin tilts wide, the expression tugging his mouth into a sharp curve of shadow. When he takes another drag off his cigarette he doesn't look away, keeps holding Musashi's gaze as he draws an inhale, pulls the cigarette away to exhale a cloud of smoke between them. "What are you doing here, then?"

Musashi watches the silver of the smoke catch at Hiruma's hair, curl into tendrils around his features, and he doesn't speak, doesn't answer the question that is no kind of a question for either of them. Hiruma's gaze slides away, drifts from his eyes down to his mouth and lingers there, and Musashi doesn't turn away, doesn't do anything except to lift his hand and pull away the cigarette he has braced between his lips. Hiruma's eyelashes flutter, ink and shadow in the night, and when he moves it's to take a step in, to fit himself so close into Musashi's personal space that his shoes bump against the other's. He doesn't say anything. He doesn't have to. Musashi can feel his heart pounding itself frantic in his chest, can feel his blood rushing fever-hot in his veins, can taste gunpowder in the air. Hiruma is watching his mouth, and his lips are an invitation, and Musashi is leaning in, drawn inexorably closer by the magnetism that Hiruma seems to have in place of blood. There's smoke at his lips, the warmth of Hiruma's breathing against his mouth, dark eyes in his periphery - and Hiruma draws back, flinching by an inch that is nevertheless enough to stall Musashi where he stands.

They're both silent for a moment, the space between them too small to allow for any denial of what they were attempting, of what they nearly did. Then Hiruma takes a breath that Musashi can hear shake in his throat and says, "Are you coming back yet?"

Musashi shuts his eyes, lets the cold of the night sink into his bones. "No."

"Fine," Hiruma says, and he draws away. Musashi waits until he's heard the scuff of Hiruma's boots on the ground underfoot, until the heat of the other's proximity has faded with reasonable distance; it's only then that he opens his eyes and risks looking at the other.

Hiruma's not watching him anymore. He's turned out towards the field, his eyes fixed on the goal posts Musashi can't bring himself to look at; when he takes a drag off his cigarette he tips his head back, exhales the smoke up towards the stars overhead and the glow of the narrow moon offering weak illumination.

"You should find someone else," Musashi says, because he has to say it, because his chest is aching with secondhand hurt that pierces far deeper than his own agony ever could.

Hiruma takes another inhale of smoke. The hand holding the cigarette is barely shaking at all. "No can do, old man," he says at the sky, grinning so wide Musashi almost doesn't hear the way his voice trembles, wouldn't at all if he weren't listening for it. "I've got to keep the spot open for an old friend of mine."

Musashi's smile catches him unawares, pushes a laugh out of his throat that comes so suddenly it's nearly the shape of a sob. "Don't you ever get tired of waiting?"

Hiruma glances at him, flashes the white edges of his teeth in a smile. "Never," he says.

Even with the distance between them, Musashi can see the bright in Hiruma's eyes.


End file.
